MOULTRIE — The new Colquitt County High football field house is still more than five weeks away from its proposed completion date, but it already has a nickname.

Players, coaches and others who go there will be entering “Hawg Heaven.”

The 14,000-square-foot, $1.2 million facility located on the south side of the high school is scheduled to be ready for use on July 15.

It will have a 5,500-square-foot room just for the 150 lockers that Packer football officials hope will be filled with the gear of players in grades 9 through 12.

Those players, instead of having to travel from the high school to the field house at Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium, now will not have to leave campus to get ready for practice.

And all the amenities await, including large meeting room with a sliding divider that will allow the offensive and defensive teams to meet separately.

Assistant coaches will have a large office with computer drops. And adjacent is a video editing room.

The laundry room is equipped with new industrial washers and dryers.

The large storage room has a rollup door.

And two regulation-size fields await outside the door in the area that once was the location of Ike Aultman Field, the former home of the Packers baseball team.

City of Moultrie crews have already moved the lights that once illuminated the baseball field to a configuration that will allow for night practices.

And a scoreboard will be in place to allow for sub-varsity games to be played on one or both of the fields, if necessary.

Packers coach Tim Cokely envisions the field house as more than just a place for players to dress for practice, however.

In fact, he said he hopes it will turn in something akin to a “home away from home.”

“This can be a good place for our guys to go, a place where our guys can go to do homework, a place where there will be coaches to supervise them,” Cokely said.

“Right now, we don’t really have good place for study hall. This will offer a good, quiet place for homework with coaches there to help out.”

And the facility will enable the staff to keep tabs on the players’ nutritional needs as well, with plans for snacks or sandwiches to be available.

“We work these kids so hard and most kids just don’t eat right,” Cokely said. “We always worry about what they are doing to nourish themselves.”

The kitchen area is adjacent to the meeting room and has a door to the outside, where grills can be set up.

Cokely said he hopes to have different a churche take on providing a pre-game meal and offering a devotion for each of the Packers football contests this season.

“And it will give the community a chance to interact with our kids,” Cokely said.

School Superintendent Leonard McCoy says the field house will have give the football program “a chance to meet other needs of the kids.”

Cokely said there are about 100 players is grades 10-12 going through off-season workouts.

He said he expects another 60 or so rising ninth-graders under head freshman team coach Greg Tillery.

And having the varsity, B-team and ninth-grade practicing in close proximity on the two fields that will run parallel to the field house will off an additional bonus.

“We’ll be able to integrate all those players into our practices,” Cokely said. “Coach (Robert) Craft will be able to work with the ninth-grade quarterbacks as well as the varsity and B-team quarterbacks.”

The facility was modeled after the one recently built at Fitzgerald High.

McCoy said when it is finished, the Colquitt County High football field house will be a South Georgia showcase.

“As far as I’m concerned, this is just another step toward a state championship,” McCoy said.

PACKERS NOTES: McCoy said the area between the field house and canning plant will be paved for parking, which will help those who use the canning plant.

Packer fans who want to help the program in a unique way can take advantage of the “Legacy Lockers Initiative,” and purchase one of the 150 lockers. The cost is $350.

The money will go toward supporting the football program. A brass plate will be affixed to lockers in the memory or in honor of someone or in the name of the purchaser.

For more on the Legacy Locker Initiative, contact coach Cokely at 921-0748 or Lou Ann Lardy at 890-6235. …

The Georgia High School Association has named the week of July 4 as a time in which coaches can have no contact with their players.

The team will get back together for summer workouts on July 9. …

Free physicals will be offered to students who plan to participate in any sport at Colquitt County High during the 2007-2008 school year.

The physicals will be given at 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 24, in the high school gymnasium.

Physical forms must be signed by a parent and presented at the time of the physical.

The football team will practice in shorts and shoulder pads from Aug. 1-3.

Practice in full pads begins Monday, Aug. 6. The first day of school is Tuesday, Aug. 7.

The Packers will play host to Cairo in the pre-season scrimmage at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 23.

The regular-season opener will be at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 31, against Cairo at Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium.